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Destructive Development: The Representation Of Place As An Effective Tool Of Resistance In Britain And India

Part 1 Dissertation 2001David HallUniversity of Lincoln, UKThe concept of progress has led to 'destructive development' in both India and the British context. This paper examines discourses of resistance to this type of development in both western and non-western contexts, concentrating on the representation of place as a tool of this resistance. The effectiveness of this tool is judged by the influence that it has exerted on social practices. Examination of resistance in Britain reveals that it is not represented in the mainstream media unless it is too large to ignore. Even then the root causes of the protest are not covered and campaigners are represented as a minority. This serves to present a society in which there is supposedly nothing to resist despite evidence to suggest that there is widespread poverty in Britain. Media channels in India are not accessible to marginalised groups resisting destructive development. Consequently, direct action is a more likely outcome of discontent. In the media, the two conuntries are represented only in terms of their differences, whereas this study reveals that there are many similarities in the nature of resistance arising out of the 'progress' driven agenda of global capitalism.David Hall